They get paid out in full this year, the whole contract counts against the cap and then the contract is terminated moving forward?? There's no penalty for the years he has left on his contract?

They just accelerated the ability to buy a player out by one year. For this season only it counts on the cap but moving forward the buy out will not count against the cap. A team can only exercise one amnesty buy out now and if they do they first must place the player on waivers and he must clear before the season starts. So it is a short short window right now. It doesn't really help the team much other than they get to buy a player out now. This change helps players that are being told to sit at home for a year and not play hockey. It gives them a chance to sign elsewhere and at least play this season.

Hank wrote:Amazing how fast the league and PA can come to an agreement when they want to.

Exactly, this may have been driven by a threat from Gomez and Redden to file a grievance against the Rangers and the Habs. The last thing the NHL or the PA want right now is something like this to take centre ice (pun intended) before the season starts. And if there were a grievance what type of pickle would that put the NHl should the teams lose? This simply allows two players to sign FA deals and play again in the NHL.

I'd take a chance, for the right contract , on both of these guys.

Front money is that Boston may want to re-unite Redden and Chara. Gomez is anyone's guess at this point but you would hope MG would be in there taking a look see.

Hank wrote:Amazing how fast the league and PA can come to an agreement when they want to.

Exactly, this may have been driven by a threat from Gomez and Redden to file a grievance against the Rangers and the Habs. The last thing the NHL or the PA want right now is something like this to take centre ice (pun intended) before the season starts. And if there were a grievance what type of pickle would that put the NHl should the teams lose? This simply allows two players to sign FA deals and play again in the NHL.

I'd take a chance, for the right contract , on both of these guys.

Front money is that Boston may want to re-unite Redden and Chara. Gomez is anyone's guess at this point but you would hope MG would be in there taking a look see.

I heard NJ Devils would be the likely destination of Gomez. I guess he had his best years there and was a fan favorite. I wonder how bad he would get boo'd in MTL if he was able to somehow regain his lost scoring touch.

Lancer wrote:Ballard's as good as gone regardless how he does this season, otherwise Gillis may as well let Edler walk. Welcome to Buttman's 'level playing field'.

Edit: depending on the CBA, there may not be much coming out of the owners' pockets as the buyouts will come out of the players' share of HRR (which I would interpret that to mean the money would come out of their escrow - employees paying themselves out of their contracts ).

Does it actually make any sense to buy these guys out?I'm still trying to figure out exactly how the Amnesty buyout works, but from what I've read, the owner pays 2/3 of the remaining salary up front, which comes out of HIS pocket (not the escrow), however the amount is calculated as part of the players HRR %.

So for Keith Ballard, you pay him $2.8 mil to go away, leaving you the remaining $1.4 mil to find & pay an NHL caliber defenceman to take his place. Do we have someone else to play the #5 D-man position? Would we rather have Alberts?

The cap space isn't really an issue at all, as either Ballard or Booth could be sent down to the Wolves to clear cap space (if needed) and then recalled if we have a bunch of injuries. With the compressed season there is a good chance that we might lose a top 4 D-man or a top 6 winger, so having Booth or Ballard would probably be better than the alternative.And looking at the going price for free agents, I doubt that we'll find a significant upgrade on the market in the $1.5 - $2 mil range...

Zamboni Driver wrote:Does it actually make any sense to buy these guys out?

Also you can no longer send players to the minors to hide their cap hits. I believe the threshold is 900K, so if a player making $4M is sent down, $3.1M still counts against the cap.

A-ha, well that does make a big difference...So the only relief then would be LTIR?

Obviously GMMG didn't figure that they could get anything of equal value for a lower price on the open market, so that's why they didn't buy either of them out....

And is there any rule to prevent the player from re-signing with the club for a lower amount?Say for example that GMMG tells Ballard that they can't fit him under the cap at $4.2 mil, buys him out for $2.8 mil, and then offers him a contract that close to market value, at maybe $1.5 mil. He would still get his money, but at a much friendlier cap hit.

Compliance buy outs were originally to begin this off season, and again next offseason.

However the PA and league scrambled to allow two players who had been sent home so as to avoid injury (which would compromise their team's ability to buy them out in the offseason) during the season - Redden and Gomez.

Those players were bought out with their cap hits for this season still on the books, they will come off this offseason as originally planned however they have also gotten the chance to continue their playing careers.

Nobody on the Canucks really fits the description (in terms of being so bad and such a certainty to be bought out that the team would send them home rather than risk compromising their chance to get rid of the contract in the summer).

Lancer wrote:Ballard's as good as gone regardless how he does this season, otherwise Gillis may as well let Edler walk. Welcome to Buttman's 'level playing field'.

Edit: depending on the CBA, there may not be much coming out of the owners' pockets as the buyouts will come out of the players' share of HRR (which I would interpret that to mean the money would come out of their escrow - employees paying themselves out of their contracts ).

Does it actually make any sense to buy these guys out?I'm still trying to figure out exactly how the Amnesty buyout works, but from what I've read, the owner pays 2/3 of the remaining salary up front, which comes out of HIS pocket (not the escrow), however the amount is calculated as part of the players HRR %.

So for Keith Ballard, you pay him $2.8 mil to go away, leaving you the remaining $1.4 mil to find & pay an NHL caliber defenceman to take his place. Do we have someone else to play the #5 D-man position? Would we rather have Alberts?

The cap space isn't really an issue at all, as either Ballard or Booth could be sent down to the Wolves to clear cap space (if needed) and then recalled if we have a bunch of injuries. With the compressed season there is a good chance that we might lose a top 4 D-man or a top 6 winger, so having Booth or Ballard would probably be better than the alternative.And looking at the going price for free agents, I doubt that we'll find a significant upgrade on the market in the $1.5 - $2 mil range...

I can see a team like NJ trading for a guy like Booth (when he comes back from injury), instead of buying him out this offseason you could trade him for Zubrus at the deadline, he's a perfect forward for our 3rd line center, he's a UFA at the end of the season, but we could re-sign him a bit cheaper with a bit of term if MG wanted.

With Ballard, his value should go up with this rusty defense this season, so we could get something decent for him at the draft I bet.